


not the moon, not even a star

by sinningpumpkin



Category: Kill la Kill (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Consent Issues, F/F, Haircuts, Parent/Child Incest, Post-Canon, Sibling Incest, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27233383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinningpumpkin/pseuds/sinningpumpkin
Summary: Satsuki struggles to recover. Ryuuko tries to help.
Relationships: Kiryuuin Satsuki/Matoi Ryuuko
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	not the moon, not even a star

She doesn’t expect the conversation to be as awkward as it is. She manages to get Ryuuko alone for it, at least, so Mako doesn’t constantly interrupt her as she explains the idea to her… sister. Without the weight of the world on both their shoulders, it's somehow stranger to think of Ryuuko like that.

“Sorry, what?” is the first thing Ryuuko says after Satsuki lays it all out. She opens her mouth to repeat the five minute explanation, but Ryuuko stops her. “I heard you… just,” she trails off and gives Satsuki a sidelong look.

Maybe she is strange to ask this of her new and only family. It’s only been a few weeks since Honnouji Academy and Revocs have both been dissolved. But Satsuki’s never been patient. She hadn’t thought Ryuuko would be either. “If it is not to your liking--” Ryuuko holds her hand up again and for some reason, Satsuki falls silent for her.

“Why would you want to leave all that behind?” Ryuuko asks.

That seems to be very obvious to Satsuki. “None of it really belongs to me.”

Ryuuko moves her intense gaze away from Satsuki then, and she knows that she’s finally made her point. A bit of that pride she’s grown so used to fills her chest, but it pales in comparison to the past. In fact, most things now pale in comparison to the past. She wonders if Ryuuko feels the same. “And you’ll cover rent?”

Satsuki nods. “I am fine with using the monetary resources of our mother, but I’m not interested in any of her things.” Returning to the manor always made her feel closer to death. Even without Mother there, she’s sure that won’t change. “There’s a place that I found… I think you’ll like it.” She doesn’t tell Ryuuko that she already signed the lease to what will hopefully be their new apartment, or that she already moved the things she could call definitively hers from the manor.

In the end, she doesn’t have to. “Alright,” Ryuuko says. “I guess we’ll move in together then, Satsuki Kiryuuin.”

A little smile tugs on the corner of her mouth as they start to walk back toward Mako’s house.

~

Two weeks later, they’re both completely moved into the new apartment. A new school has replaced Honnouji and they both enroll to finish their classes. Mako and the Elite Four join them as well, and they begin their endeavors to be normal teenagers.

Satsuki finds it more difficult than training an elite army of students.

It doesn’t help that her body tries to keep her in that past. She turns a corner and expects to see the brutal halls of Honnouji stretched out ahead of her. The shout from a student makes her gut tighten and the back of her neck prickle. When moving through crowds, her breathing goes heavy as the feeling of her clothes tugging on her skin becomes more and more unbearable.

Some days, she’s a soldier. These are days after insomniac nights where she stares alone at her new ceiling, cursing herself for believing that living outside the manor would allow her to sleep. She spends the day with her shoulders about her ears, alarms ringing in her skull along with tension headaches and cottonmouth.

Others, she’s barely a ghost. After nights of unstable sleep and bright terror, she can barely see. She moves through her classes, through the market, and their new apartment not really seeing any of it. Instead, she sees the head of Mother, connected to her neck by one shimmering fiber. Or Nui’s face, looming and ghoulish.

Her war was supposed to be over. But she continues to live it every day.

~

Living with Ryuuko does make it better. Not all at once. For a while, she’s still too afraid to leave her room when she can’t sleep and has to pinch the insides of her wrists when the tears come. But the knots of anxiety coiled all around her slowly begin to loosen.

She learns that Ryuuko doesn’t sleep much either. And that she eats at odd hours. Satsuki figures that out on a late night with no sleep. She levers herself out of bed and wraps herself in a robe. She hesitates at the door. Logic pounds in her skull, telling her that this isn’t the manor, that Ragyo can’t corner her in a dark hallway at night. It wins out over the fear. Though only barely. She makes her way into the common area and finds Ryuuko already awake, standing in their kitchen and making something to eat. Satsuki stares at her for a long time, and then silently returns to bed.

The next night that she can’t sleep, its easier to leave her room. And Ryuuko is awake again, eating at odd hours again. She sits at the kitchen table and Ryuuko doesn’t ask her any of the questions she’s expecting. Instead, they sit in silence. 

Then it becomes routine. Some nights, Satsuki doesn’t want silence, so she prods Ryuuko into telling stories. Eventually, Ryuuko catches on to this strange routine and starts preparing enough food for the both of them. Satsuki will wake up, eat with her sister and then return to bed, finally able to sleep.

~

They start spending less time in their respective rooms and more time together. Grocery shopping had to be done together, considering Satsuki paid and Ryuuko cooked, but soon they made a whole day out of it. Coffee and pastries in the morning, shopping until lunch time and then movies once they got home.

Sleeping gets… easier. She still has her days of being ghostly and militant, but more often than not, she finds herself in an empty space until she sees Ryuuko. Then, her days can get better. Much, much better.

She doesn’t think that Ryuuko knows. They certainly don’t talk about it.

Not when they start to clean and do laundry on the same days, or take all of their meals together. Not when Ryuuko starts cooking Satsuki’s favorite meals and Satsuki starts waiting to watch their shows together. They don’t need to talk about it, so they don’t. It feels natural, catching up on all this lost time without Mother or even Father to get in the way of it.

There are other barriers. Mako comes around several days a week. She’s nice to Satsuki and she’s polite in return, but Satsuki feels herself go transparent when Mako is over, glued to Ryuuko’s side as they study. She keeps up appearances with her own friends, but none of them are able to pull her out of those voids like Ryuuko does.

~

Satsuki doesn’t really know what any of it means until three months of living together.

“Ryuuko?” She taps on the door of their shared bathroom. “Could I-”

The door pops open before she can finish her sentence. It takes her a moment to understand what she’s seeing. One side of Ryuuko’s hair is remarkably shorter than the other and she has a pair of scissors in her hand. Little blue hairs are scattered over the sink and the floor, and Ryuuko turns back to the mirror like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. She’s wearing an old ratty t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts that absolutely dwarf her slim body. “Sorry, I’ll be done in a sec.” She runs a comb through her bangs and Satsuki realizes they’re jaggedly cut too.

“What are you doing?” she asks, half incredulous and half curious.

Ryuuko sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and finally cuts her bangs in a straight line. “Cutting my hair,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Satsuki almost rolls her eyes. “Yes, I gathered that much.” She hadn’t even noticed that Ryuuko’s hair had grown so much longer, nearly brushing her collarbones instead of laying against her jaw. “Do you always do it on your own?” She’d only come into the bathroom to grab a hand towel, but she can’t look away from where Ryuuko snips at random layers of her hair.

“Yup,” she says it proudly. “Had to. Not like Dad ever could. And at boarding school if I let anyone else close with scissors they would’ve given me some dumb cut.” She brushes some hairs off her shoulder and then compares the lengths of each side of her hair. She’s good at it.

Satsuki steps up behind her and stares at herself in the mirror. She hasn’t cut her hair since Mother died. And before, Mother made her keep it long. The weight of it hangs uncomfortably against her scalp. Ryuuko keeps hacking at her hair with a single minded concentration while Satsuki stares at them in the mirror. An interlocking image of herself and the woman she might’ve been without Ragyo. Nausea bubbles in her throat and she looks away from the mirror. “You good, sis? What did you need anyway?” Ryuuko asks.

Satsuki stares at the floor, littered with hair the same color as her own. And instead of grabbing the hand towel she needs, she says, “Will you cut my hair?”

In the mirror, Ryuuko’s eyes flick to hers, wide with surprise. “I want it… like yours,” she says. She didn’t know that was what she wanted until the words left her mouth, but they ring true in her ears.

Ryuuko gives her a long unreadable look. It isn’t the cold, stoic look that Satsuki has perfected over the years. Instead, so many emotions flash across her face that Satsuki can’t identify any of them. Their stare in the mirror breaks and Ryuuko starts cutting at her hair again. “Sure.”

So, Satsuki sits on the edge of the tub and waits for Ryuuko to finish cutting her hair. She watches Ryuuko’s hair get shorter and listens to the slow snip of the scissors until she’s done. “Alright, come here.” Ryuuko gestures for her to stand in front of the mirror.

“I might be…”

“Too tall, yeah, ya damn giraffe,” Ryuuko says. Satsuki chuckles while Ryuuko fetches her a chair to sit down in. “How short do you want it?”

Now, Satsuki can’t really see her face in the mirror that well, so she stares at Ryuuko instead. “Like yours,” she says again. She’s never been one to blush, but when Ryuuko blinks at her slowly, the hot creep of embarrassment sticks to the back of her neck. “Mother liked it long,” she murmurs. She doesn’t know why she says it, but it makes Ryuuko gather her hair at the base of her neck and begin to cut through it. Her hair is thick, so it takes a moment for Ryuuko to saw through its bulk. Then she snips the last strand and the weight on Satsuki’s scalp disappears. Long dark strands of hair scatter across their bathroom floor and the ragged edges of her hair bounce around her face.

She gasps. She can’t even see herself in the mirror, but the shock propels the noise out of her throat regardless. She lifts her hand and runs it against the choppy cut of her hair. Ryuuko laughs, a strained and uncomfortable sound. “Don’t tell me you’re already regretting it.”

Obviously, she doesn’t know how Satsuki was raised to live without regrets.

“I’m gonna clean it up of course, so don’t freak out on me,” Ryuuko babbles. Her voice is rising in pitch and Satsuki shakes her head.

“No. No, it’s wonderful.” A weight that she had been carrying for so many years, lifted off of her with a few quick slices.

“Okay,” Ryuuko says. “Well, I’ll trim it up and you can tell me what you think.”

She runs a comb through Satsuki’s hair and more strands fall onto her lap. Ryuuko moves methodically, starting on her right side and moving around to her left. She uses the comb to keep Satsuki’s hair in place and then cuts her hair into a straight line. Prickly hairs fall onto Satsuki’s skin, making her itch and shift. Ryuuko gently guides her back into place with the tips of her fingers, until the ragged line she had felt earlier has smoothed out. Ryuuko tousels her hair again and then stands in front of her.

Satsuki stares at Ryuuko’s belly while she plucks at random pieces and cuts them. She becomes less methodical, and Satsuki knows that she should probably feel worried about what she’ll look like, but if it comes out something like Ryuuko’s she won’t mind. “Uh,” Ryuuko clears her throat and Satsuki’s eyes flick to her face. “Do you want me to trim your bangs too?”

She nods jerkily, suddenly not trusting her voice. Ryuuko rakes through them with her fingers first, before using the comb to hold them. Satsuki hadn’t even realized how long they’d gotten. She’s still staring at Ryuuko when her sister says, “You should probably, uh, close your eyes. The hair, might get in them, you know?” Another sweep of embarrassment passes through her, but she ignores it and closes her eyes.

“You want them like normal?”

Satsuki doesn’t know how Ryuuko would know what her normal is, but she agrees anyway. The scissors pass against her brow as Ryuuko carefully trims her bangs. A few passes of the comb and one more pass of the scissors and Ryuuko has finished. “All done,” she says.

Satsuki brushes the hair off her face and stands to look at herself in the mirror. It’s perfect. Her bangs are their normal length, but her hair hits right against her jaw. It’s a little shorter than Ryuuko’s is, but it’s more flattering to the shape of her face. For the first time she can remember, Satsuki looks into the mirror and sees herself alone. The traces of Ragyo that might always haunt her have been wiped from her appearance.

“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you, Ryuuko.”

She jumps at the sound of her name and turns toward Satsuki. Ryuuko doesn’t meet her eyes though. “Any time.” She ducks out of the bathroom with flushed cheeks and Satsuki stares after her, unsure why there’s a knot in her belly.

~

Maybe somewhere along the line she began to mistake simple kindness for something more. Maybe Mother crossed her wires to the point where they could never be uncrossed. Whatever the reason may be, Satsuki can’t stop thinking about that moment in the bathroom. The diligent way that Ryuuko helped her, the flush on her cheeks and the strange tension it spurred within Satsuki. It didn’t make sense, but she had known this confusing, uncomfortable feeling before, and she only knew one way to cope with it.

Two nights later, after their late dinner and Ryuuko retiring to sleep, Satsuki got up out of her own bed and went to Ryuuko’s room. Ryuuko starts when Satsuki opens the door, twisting toward her with a weird grunt. “It’s me,” Satsuki murmurs. It’s too dark for her to see Ryuuko, which means it's too dark for her sister to see Satsuki’s naked body.

Blindly, she navigates the messy room, until her knees knock against Ryuuko’s mattress. She flattens a hand over the rumpled sheets and Ryuuko makes a sleepy, confused noise. “May I?”

Satsuki isn’t sure if Ryuuko knows what she’s asking. Or what saying yes means. But, she doesn’t try to explain it. There’s no way to explain the bubbly feeling she gets in her belly and the need that’s been lapping at her nerves ever since that moment in their bathroom. Action has always been more useful, anyway.

When Ryuuko grunts some sort of affirmation, she throws the covers back and crawls into bed. The sheets are cool and soft against her bare skin, but she burns between her thighs. Ryuuko twists toward her, and now they’re close enough for Satsuki to see the curves of her face and the knots in her hair. Her eyes widen and Satsuki knows that she can see now. Her lips part and Satsuki thinks of kissing her, feels her entire body surge with desire for it, but can only stay frozen. Even now, repulsion pulses at the edges of her vision, threatening to close in on her. She wants this, she needs this, but--

“Sat...suki? What…” Ryuuko’s words are muffled because Satsuki is remembering her flush as she left the bathroom and every time they’ve seen each other’s bodies, the naked desire and want that she’d caught in flashes before… everything else.

Satsuki reaches for her and Ryuuko doesn’t flinch. Their breathing is synchronised and in a flash, Satsuki remembers Junksetsu. Her fingers curl around Ryuuko’s wrist, gentle as she guides the touch toward herself. Ryuuko stares and stares and Satsuki presses her hand up between her thighs, where she’s hot and wet and wanting.

“Satsuki!” Ryuuko’s voice finally breaks through to her and her fingers loosen around her. Ryuuko jerks her hand away and rolls to the other side of the bed, looking at her with wild eyes. For a second, Satsuki thinks about forcing it, about following her to the edge of the bed that’s pressed against the wall, of laying herself over Ryuuko and kissing her, hooking her fingers into that place where she knows Ryuuko holds desire for her. She thinks about doing all of those things, and then realizes it’s her mother’s voice saying them.

A knot of bile sticks in her throat and she gathers the blankets up around her naked body, heartbeat hammering in her ears. The humiliation and shame knit her into the mattress, eyes staring unblinkingly at the ceiling as she begs her body to just move and take her back to her room. Ryuuko speaks before she can force her body into submission.

“Satsuki?” The outrage is gone from her voice. A fragile care replaces it. “Are you… okay?”

Satsuki squeezes her eyes shut. It’s a loaded question, impossible to answer, and Ryuuko knows she’s lying when she nods. Another uncomfortable beat of silence stretches out and then, “You know that it’s… wrong. We can’t do that sort of thing, you know that, right?”

Satsuki sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. Ragyo’s face looms behind her eyelids, right next to Nui and Jakuzure and all the people who were allowed to touch her like they owned her. “I know,” she croaks. She owes Ryuuko some sort of truth.

“Then why… Satsuki,” Ryuuko starts and stops, like she’s forcing the words from between clenched teeth. “What did our mom  _ do _ to you?”

It’s a question that Satsuki has been asking herself for her entire life. Wetness collects behind her eyes as she claws for the facts, the words she’s recited to herself each time she remembers her mother. “Mother touched me. She always believed that I was her property, so she touched me how she pleased. Or made me touch her how she’d like.” She takes a deep breath. “Even when I lied to her and turned my back on her, I couldn’t stop her from doing that.” The rest of it knots up in her throat and she shakes her head.

“She molested you.”

Satsuki hates that word. Even now, she feels defense for Mother well up behind her teeth. She hates that word, because it never felt right because--

“I liked it,” Satsuki breathes. “She made me like it.”

Ryuuko is quiet.

Satsuki should apologize. She opens her mouth to do it and instead she says, “Once she… made Nui, she became my sister. So, she could touch me too.” Ryuuko cringes next to her, but Satsuki can’t reel the words in before they unspool. “Same with Jakuzure… but everyone else was off limits.”

She takes a heaving breath. “And now, I need it. And they’re all gone… except for you.”

Ryuuko shifts and comes closer to her. Satsuki sucks in a breath, expecting a touch that she doesn’t receive. She can feel the heat of Ryuuko’s body beside her, though, warm and soft and inviting. If she focuses on it for too long, bile rises in the back of her throat. “You need it?” It’s the softest she’s ever heard Ryuuko speak. She nods. “You need it. But… you don’t, not from me. We can’t--”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Satsuki snaps. “Gamagori practically threw himself at my feet. There was nothing. Strangers male and female alike. She made my body crave her, crave my sisters and…” She starts enraged, but by the end her voice is barely a whisper. She’s exhausted. She has been for many years. “It doesn’t matter if I know it's wrong. Or if I hate it,” she sighs.

“Satsuki,” Ryuuko whispers. She squeezes her eyes shut. “Satsuki,” she says it again, but this time with that determined edge that Satsuki has come to adore so much. She swallows a sob. “Tell me what you need, Satsuki.” Her heat molds against her side, scalding and shocking and she gasps.

Her body moves on instinct, hands lifting above her head, legs spreading. She opens her eyes long enough to see Ryuuko staring down at her. Her face is lined with determination and if Satsuki were a better person, she would stop this. Instead, she curls her fingers around Ryuuko’s headboard and says, “Touch me.”

Ryuuko does. With hesitation and uncertainty, her hand finds its way between Satsuki’s legs. The movements are slow and clumsy in the dark, but Satsuki could sob with their familiarity. She twists her face into Ryuuko and breathes against her throat as they move together. Pleasure blurs her around the edges, and for now, the disgust is far away. “Ryuuko,” she mumbles and her sister shudders, working at her clit with quick little circles.

It isn’t how she usually likes it. Or how Mother did it. But it's good. It’s Ryuuko. In the same way that her short hair is Ryuuko and her new sleep schedule is Ryuuko. It’s perfect. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispers, shivering and sweating into the sheets. The duvet has fallen from her chest, but she’s still hot, panting and desperate as her hips roll up into Ryuuko’s hand. Satsuki’s mouth smears against Ryuuko’s skin, barely enough to be called a kiss, but her mouth pulses with it all the same.

“Kiss me,” she mumbles, twisting her face out of the hollow of Ryuuko’s throat. Her sister doesn’t answer. Her hand works faster between Satsuki’s legs and her thighs begin to tremble. Satsuki means to repeat herself, mouth tingling and hands grasping at the headboard for more and more and more--

But the peak of her pleasure breaks and crashes over her. Her toes curl against the sheets and her voice catches in her throat. All at once, everything seems to come back into focus, every day of being a soldier or a ghost wiped away, and Satsuki is simply herself. Her needs and desires, easy and cleancut.

Ryuuko pulls away from her and Satsuki lays her arms down by her sides. “Thank you,” she whispers again. Her sister doesn’t respond.

The glow of pleasure fades away, until she can feel where she’s sticky with sweat and her lips are cracked. She looks toward Ryuuko, who turns to face her at the same moment. Satsuki beats her to speaking. “Don’t,” her voice breaks. Ryuuko’s face falls and Satsuki’s body suddenly aches all over. “Please, don’t make me leave.” It’s pathetic. Ragyo would laugh at her.

But, Ragyo is not in bed with her. Instead, it is her little sister. Warm and gentle when she opens her arms and curls them around Satsuki. Self sacrificing and sweet as she lets Satsuki fall asleep in her bed. And better than Satsuki could ever be. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi i hope u liked it :)
> 
> find me on twitter @pumpkinnnie


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